The Race is Run

An Exchange with Gary Krupp

Mr. Gary Krupp of the Pave the Way Foundation has responded to my previous post The Assassination Duet. His comment may be viewed here.

So that our exchange will not be buried in the comments section, here is my response to Mr. Krupp.

..........................

Thank you for your comment, Mr. Krupp.

As one of Pope Pius XII's chief apologists, you are well aware that controversy over his conduct during World War Two is delaying the canonisation process.

It is disingenuous of you to suggest that your continuing stream of positive "revelations" about Pope Pius XII's wartime role do not contribute in very large measure to the cause for his canonisation.

Father Peter Gumpel S.J., the investigative judge of the cause for canonisation of Pope Pius XII, is reported to have said that persons such as yourself and your network of associates do contribute to the cause.

"...all the necessary documents for the beatification of Pope Pius XII had been gathered by the Vatican Congregation for Saints' Causes by 2004. Subsequent evaluations by historians, theologians and a panel of cardinals and bishops, he said, had resulted in the "enthusiastically positive" recommendation to proceed with the advancement of the beatification process." [The Catholic News Service]

You are advancing the cause for canonisation of Pope Pius XII regardless of your publicly stated aim of having this Pope declared as "Righteous among the Nations ."

If Pius XII were to be declared by Yad Vashem as "Righteous as among the Nations" then it would clear the way for beatification, as you well know.

You challenged me to provide instances of misleading headlines on your website. Here is one such instance:

"Pius XII ordered the return of all Jewish children protected by Catholics after the war to any family members who could be found. An international controversy erroneously claimed that he ordered baptized children to be kept by their Catholic protectors. This PDF shows the original Vatican directive of September 28, 1946  and the mistranslated French document dated October 23, 1946, which caused the controversy."

Before we look at the document to which this headline points, it is necessary to provide a little background for our readers.

According to David Dalin,* Dr. Isaac Herzog, the chief Rabbi of Palestine, met with Pius XII on a Sunday early in March 1946 to seek the Pope's help in returning to the Jewish fold those Jewish children then being raise in monasteries and by Christian families. The Pope promised Herzog he would look into the situation and the Chief Rabbi "expressed his profound thanks," both for the Pope's promise and for the heroic work done by Pius and the Catholic Church to rescue and shelter Jews during the war.

The headline quoted above points to an English translation of a PDF document entitled Jewish Children. The "original Vatican directive"  to which Pope Pius XII gave his approval on 28 March 1946 reads as follows:

"The Eminent Fathers decided that if possible, there should be no response to the request of the Grand Rabbi; in any event, if its necessary to say something, it should be done orally, given the danger of abuse and distortion of anything written from the Holy See on the subject.

"Eventually, it will be necessary to explain that the Church must do its own research and observations in order to discern case by case, it being evident that children who were baptized cannot be entrusted to institutions that can't guarantee their Christian education.

"Besides, also those children who were not baptized and who no longer have living relatives, having been entrusted to the Church, which has taken them under its care, as long as they are not able to decide for themselves, they cannot be abandoned by the Church or delivered to parties who have no right to them.

"Things would be different if the children were requested by their relatives.

"The decision of the Eminent Fathers and the criteria here presented were referred to the Holy Father in an audience of March 28, and His Holiness deigned to provide his august approval."

Much controversy has erupted over the difference between the "original Vatican directive" and the so-called "mistranslated French document." All parties to the controversy have seemed oblivious to the "elephant in the room" - the very first words of the "original."

Instead of providing evidence that "Pius XII ordered the return of all Jewish children protected by Catholics after the war to any family members who could be found" the "original Vatican directive" actually admonishes that, if possible, no information about Jewish children should be provided to the Chief Rabbi.

This directive in fact displays astonishing arrogance, pragmatism rather than morality, a profound contempt for the sufferings of the Jewish people, and demonstrates just how untrustworthy and hollow were Pius' public promises and assurances to Chief Rabbi Herzog.

Regardless of what may, or may not, have happened later to those Jewish children in question, Vatican intent at the time was to conceal, prevaricate, and equivocate.

I have no doubt that many of the Jewish statements of praise for Pope Pius XII that you feature on your website were based on similarly dishonest promises and assurances - truly a triumph of hope over experience.

Readers may download Jewish Children from the Pave The Way Foundation Pius XII Documents page and decide for themselves whether the headline is an accurate reflection of the document's content.

Mr. Krupp, your constant attempts to demonstrate that Pope Pius XII was against Hitler and Nazism are simply red herrings which serve to conceal the Pope's real concern which was to bolster and advocate a strong Christian Germany as the only possible bulwark against godless Bolshevism. Hitler and Nazism were merely incidental elements which could be embraced or rejected at will.

As I promised my readers in The Assassination Duet, in the next post we will see if another Pave the Way Foundation document is deserving of the credibility it has been afforded - the affidavit of SS General Karl Wolff regarding Hitler's plot to kidnap the Pope.

* David G. Dalin, The Myth of Hitler's Pope: Pope Pius XII and His Secret War Against Nazi Germany, Regnery Publishing, 2005, page 113.

The Assassination Duet

In Extraterrestrials and the Lady of Fatima, I said that:

"The cause for canonisation of Pope Pius XII has been underway for the last twenty-five years but is now gathering steam as various apologists for this Pope and his role during World War II are popping up all over the place. Make no mistake, just as with the recent re-communication of the holocaust-denying Bishop of the Society of St Pius X, the cause for canonisation of Pope Pius XII is intended to provoke and distress the Jewish people, sanctimonious papal mouthings notwithstanding. [See The Holy Games : Jew-baiting]"

These apologists have struggled to place so much distance between Hitler and the Pope that they seem oblivious to the fact that both men are now painted in the same primary colours...as the criminal, the conspirator, and the assassin.

Hitler's plot to kill the Pope
Avvenire, the newspaper of the Italian bishops recently published an article headed "More Proof of Hitler's Plan to Kill Pius XII."

The Pope's plot to kill Hitler
Gary Krupp, President of the Pave the Way Foundation, also made a recent statement that the Pope was "named as a co-conspirator in the assassination attempt on Hitler's life of July 20, 1944."

Papal Knight Gary Krupp and his "advisor" Michael Hesemann have been leading the campaign to canonise Pope Pius XII for quite some time but must have met with some frustration as Krupp has now labelled those who disagree with him as "absurd fanatics who manipulate the truth" and who have secret agendas.

Yet when one considers Krupp's posturing language, his disingenuous and downright misleading claims, and most of all his reliance on that purveyor of 'apostles' relics, UFOlogist, Crop Circle chaser and Marian apparition specialist, Michael Hesemann, to discover and translate so-called 'evidence', then a diagnosis of self-deception and self-projection is irresistible. [For more on Michael Hesemann see Extraterrestrials and the Lady of Fatima]

Cartloads of documents supposedly exonerating Pope Pius XII are now appearing in rapid succession and are being posted on Krupp's Pave the Way Foundation website. In many cases, however, when the documentation is analysed, their content utterly fails to live up to the trumpeting headlines, or else statements are lifted out of context and customary patterns of behaviour and accepted with a gullibility that is downright ludicrous.

We will illustrate the above point by examining Krupp and Hesemann's claims about SS General Karl Wolff.

to be continued...

Men in Black

...continued from The "Man in Black"

We will take our leave of the influential Jesuit Father Pietro Tacchi-Venturi by quoting from a self-described Ignatiophile website containing what seems to be the only publicly-available information still in existence. In an article primarily concerning the Jesuit Superior General, Wlodimir Ledochowski, and the material benefits that the Jesuits gained from the Concordat [the Lateran Treaties of 1929],  we discover incidentally that the Concordat was "somewhat engineered by a Jesuit, Father Tacchi Venturi..."

But the really interesting information about Father Tacchi-Venturi's activities is not publicly-available: it is held within the archives of the Society of Jesus and there is precious little likelihood that anyone would be granted access to those files, even though they have been requested by the International Catholic-Jewish Historical Commission.

The ICJHC project entitled "The Vatican and the Holocaust" was announced in Rome in October, 1999 by Cardinal Edward I. Cassidy, President of the Holy See’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews and Mr. Seymour D. Reich, Chairman of the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations (IJCIC).

The Historical Commission began its work with the proposal put to it by Cardinal Cassidy to examine critically the eleven volumes of archival material published by the Holy See’s Secretariat of State between 1965 and 1981, entitled Actes et Documents du Saint Siège relatifs à la seconde guerre mondiale (ADSS). Each volume considers a different topic and time frame. Included in these documents are the diplomatic correspondence of the Holy See’s Secretariat of State with its representatives and foreign officials, as well as notes and memoranda from meetings with diplomats and Church leaders from various countries. These documents are published in the languages in which they were originally written (primarily Italian, French and German, but also some in Latin and English), and each volume, apart from Volume 3 which is divided into two books, has a separate introduction.

In the concluding observations of its Vatican and the Holocaust Preliminary Report of October 26, 2000, the ICJHC had this to say:*

"In assessing the adequacy of the eleven volumes for an understanding of the role of the Vatican during the Holocaust, let us bear in mind that no history of the role of any government in a matter so broad as the Holocaust could be effectively undertaken on the basis of diplomatic exchanges alone ­ even when supplemented, as the ADSS occasionally are, with notes prepared as aides mémoires or other records. Furthermore, historians need to know what material is not in those volumes. Even without an inventory of the archives of the Holy See, it is plain from the ADSS that important pieces of the historical puzzle are missing from that collection. Some of these are the records of day to day administration of the Church and the Holy See. In addition, there are the numerous internal communications that every administration leaves behind ­ diaries, memoranda, appointment books, minutes of meetings, draft documents, and so forth that detail the process of how the Vatican arrived at the decisions it made.

"Apropos the usefulness of having documents outside the official archives, it would be helpful to have access to the papers (spogli) of such prominent protagonists as Luigi Maglione, Amleto and Gaitano Cicognani, Giovanni Montini, Domenico Tardini, Alfredo Ottaviani, Valerio Valeri, Giuseppe Burzio, Angelo Rotta, Eugene Tisserant, Filippo Bernardini and other Vatican officials of the period.

"Similarly, it would be useful to have access to the various archives of the Society of Jesus, particularly for the papers of Wlodimir Ledochowski, Robert Leiber, Pietro Tacchi-Venturi, Gustav Gundlach, and Robert Graham..."

Reactions to this Preliminary report by the Vatican and others will be the subject of a future post.

* The Preliminary Report is well worth reading in its entirety and can be found at Boston College, one of the oldest Jesuit Universities in the USA.

The "Man in Black"

I originally intended to arrange my posts more or less chronologically in this series on Rome and European Fascism but the need to address current events and also to follow the threads of particular issues means that we will have to depart from this course on occasion. Now we must pursue the career of Father Tacchi-Venturi as far as the record will take us.

The role of Father Tacchi-Venturi, Mussolini's "Great and Good Friend," was described by his fellow Jesuit, Pierre Blet:*

"Father Tacchi-Venturi served as the Vatican's official intermediary not only with Mussolini but also with the various governmental departments, including the heads of police as well as the general board for demographics and race, which was responsible for foreigners especially the Jews."

Twenty-one years after we first encountered Tacchi-Venturi in 1922, his sphere of influence remained undiminished - he was still the emissary between the Italian State and the Vatican, but now under Eugenio Pacelli: Pope Pius XII.

After the fall of Mussolini in July 1943, Italy's new anti-Fascist Government of Marshal Badoglio was expected to rescind the most extreme laws of Fascism.

On August 18 1943, Tacchi-Venturi suggested to Cardinal Secretary of State Maglione that it would be a good idea to take advantage of the overthrow of the Fascist regime and ask for a change in the anti-semitic legislation. He did not intend to ask for its repeal, as had happened in the south and in Sicily where the new Allied military government had completely abrogated all anti-semitic legislation introduced under the old Fascist regime, but merely for the abrogation of three minor provisions of the law which dealt with Catholic converts from Judaism. Maglione agreed. But before Tacchi-Venturi could prepare his petition to the new Minister for Interior Affairs,  he was approached by a group of Jews living in terror of the approaching Nazi sweep through Italy. They begged him to intercede on their behalf.

Tacchi-Venturi reported** back to Cardinal Maglione on August 29 stating that the Jews had asked for:

"...the complete return to the legislation that had been introduced by the liberal regimes  and had been in effect since November 1938."

But Tacchi-Venturi reported that he had rejected their pleas:

"...I limited myself, as I was supposed to, to only the three points specified in Your Eminence's praiseworthy message of 18 August...I took care not to ask for the total abrogation of a law [i.e. the racial law] which, according to the principles and the traditions of the Catholic Church, certainly has some clauses that should be abolished, but which clearly contains others that have merit and should be confirmed."

Shortly afterwards, German soldiers began marching down the Italian peninsula towards Rome...

We will take a close look at the situation of Rome's Jews in future posts.

* Pius XII and the Second World War: According to the Archives of the Vatican, Pierre Blet S.J., Paulist Press, New Jersey, 1999, page 156.

** The Popes Against the Jews: The Vatican's Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism, David I Kertzer
Knopf, New York, 2001, page 289.

The "Cup of Trembling"

A few days before the recent 'pilgrimage' of Pope Benedict XVI to the Middle East, Israel Today  reported that the Pope would demand control of the Holy Places:

"Long-standing Vatican claims to at least five Christian holy sites in Israel are expected to be near the top of the agenda when Pope Benedict XVI visits the Holy Land next week.

"Israel has long rejected the claims, but President Shimon Peres is strongly urging the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to turn the sites over to the Catholic Church in hopes of boosting Jewish-Christian relations."

"The sites include:

• The Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth;
• The Coenaculum on Mount Zion in Jerusalem, traditional location of Jesus' Last Supper;
• Gethsemane at the foot of the Mount of Olives;
• Mount Tabor in the Lower Galilee region; and
• The Church of the Multiplication which lies along the shores of the Sea of Galilee."

To those of us who have been watching the Vatican manoeuvre itself into a position to claim sovereignty over Jerusalem, this prediction by Israel Today will come as no surprise.

But, as reported yesterday in Haaretz,  Netanyahu is obviously no fool and will not be intimidated by so-called "world opinion" voiced by the increasingly shrill posturings of those with anti-Israel agendas:

"Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish people, a city reunified so as never again to be divided," Netanyahu said at a ceremony to mark Jerusalem Day in the city's Mercaz Harav yeshiva. "Our people's unparalleled affinity to Jerusalem has spanned thousands of years, and is at the basis of our national renaissance. It has united our people, secular and religious people alike."

"Jerusalem Day celebrates the conquest of the city during the 1967 Six Day War, before which Jordan controlled east Jerusalem, while Israel had the western section. Shortly after the war, Israel annexed east Jerusalem.

"Earlier on Thursday, Netanyahu said similar things at a state ceremony to mark the day.

"United Jerusalem is Israel's capital. Jerusalem was always ours and will always be ours. It will never again be partitioned and divided," Netanyahu said.

"Netanyahu said he had made the same declaration during his recent visit to Washington, where he met with United States President Barack Obama over the peace process and Iran's nuclear program.

"Only under Israeli sovereignty will united Jerusalem ensure the freedom of religion and freedom of access for the three religions to the holy places," Netanyahu added.

Netanyahu's total rejection of all spurious claims on Israel's capital will infuriate many. Palestinian negotiator, Saab Erekat, has already responded:

"Mr. Netanyahu, by saying that, he's saying the state of conflict will be eternal."

The Obama administration will not be happy and, make no mistake, the Vatican hierarchy will be positively fuming.

But, as Saab Erekat recognises, it is an eternal battle. Who is to have control over the truly eternal city of Jerusalem? Is it to be Israel? Or is it to be Rome?

There is a very revealing passage in Zechariah about the ultimate fate of Jerusalem, the city where YHVH has put his name:

"Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the peoples round about....And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem." [Zechariah 12:2-9]

PHOTO:
Israeli youths waving Israeli flags during a march celebrating Jerusalem Day in the streets of Jerusalem.
(AP)   

See especially the permanent post The Holy See and the Holy Places and also the categories Rome and Jerusalem, Rome and the State of Israel, Rome and the Jews.

The 'Pilgrim of Peace'

Evoking the shade of George Orwell, the Pope's 'Peace Pilgrimage' to the Middle East proved to be the very opposite. Pope Benedict XVI larded all his speeches with the cloying sentiments so beloved of his journalistic fan club - sentiments of "love," "peace,"  "justice," expressions of sorrow for the Holocaust etc. Despite pious appearances, however, every one of his statements was formulated to serve a distinctly un-peacelike agenda - the deliberate provocation of the State of Israel and the deliberate fanning of Palestinian religious and political hatred of the same State of Israel.

In The Holy See and the Holy Places, I remarked that the Vatican’s calculated violations of the 1993 Fundamental Agreement between Israel and the Holy See provided an excellent illustration of Roman tactics. Article 11, section 2, reads:

“The Holy See, while maintaining in every case the right to exercise its moral and spiritual teaching-office, deems it opportune to recall that, owing to its own character, it is solemnly committed to remaining a stranger to all merely temporal conflicts, which principle applies specifically to disputed territories and unsettled borders.”

Since the signing of the Agreement, the Vatican or its agents have poured forth a steady stream of inflammatory statements masked by token gestures to Israel, pious platitudes, and faux sincerity.

By decrying the existence of the "separation wall" and by calling for a sovereign Palestinian state and an end to the Israeli embargo of Hamas-led Gaza, this 'Pilgrim of Peace' is now foresworn: he has yet again violated the terms of the Agreement by making comments on "disputed territories and unsettled borders."

Just before leaving for Rome, the Pope seemed to make a concession to Israel by calling for recognition of Israel's right to exist.

"The way toward peace, asserted the Pope, is for it to be "universally recognized that the State of Israel has the right to exist, and to enjoy peace and security within internationally agreed borders" and "likewise acknowledged that the Palestinian people have a right to a sovereign independent homeland, to live with dignity and to travel freely."

And, no prize for guessing who will make the most noise about just where these borders should be. I'll make a prediction that the suggested borders will replicate those of 1948 - borders which rendered Israel totally and permanently vulnerable to a host of enemies. Well, that's the plan anyway, but I'll venture another prediction that there may be some unexpected opposition from a source much held in contempt by modern society, including those red-robed princes of the church.

We have seen in many previous posts that the Holy See has been engaged ever since the Crusades in a relentless war to establish its own hegemony over Jerusalem and Israel's "Holy Places." It is wise to remember that every papal word referring to the Middle East is designed to further this agenda. [See our categories Rome and the State of Israel and Rome and the Jews].

The overall Holy See strategy in the war over Jerusalem is to render the Israelis helpless in the face of an avalanche of sanctimonious mouthings while at the same time striking fear into their hearts by incorporating into papal speeches an undercurrent detectable only to those who keep watch on the relationship between Israel and the Holy See. This river of hate lurks just beneath the surface but is allowed to bubble up out of the darkness when necessary. Papal posturing notwithstanding, perpetual enmity exists between the Holy See and the State of Israel. We will one day investigate why these two entities cannot co-exist - it must be one or the other.

PHOTOS
Top: Pope visits Temple Mount [no Jews allowed anywhere on Temple Mount proper] (Photo by Ziv Koren/GPO via Getty Images)

Middle: Pope places his note to God in the Western Wall [Jews are allowed to stand at the western wall supporting the Temple Mount] (Photo by David Silverman/Getty Images)

Bottom: The Pope apparently can't bend down to this lay wreath at the Yad Vashem Holocaust* Memorial's Hall of Remembrance. (Photo by David Silverman/Getty Images)

* We will perhaps discover more about the Holocaust and the Popes in our continuing series on Rome and 20th Century European Fascism

Bizarre Bedfellows

Note: I recently received a communication from Mr. Irvin Mermelstein of the Jewish Survival Blog who shares my concerns about the bizarre associations and activities of a person who features prominently in the campaign to canonise Pope Pius XII. On the subject of the canonisation of Pope Pius XII, Mr. Mermelstein publishes material similar to mine and has kindly provided me with a copy of a Magazine from 2007 including remarks by this apologist, Mr. Michael Hesemann. A copy of the "UFODATA" Magazine can now be downloaded. Download Hesemann and UFO's pdf.

Communications between myself and Mr. Mermelstein have inspired me to continue to publish articles about this subject so I have decided to begin by re-posting an article I wrote in May 2009. As I said to Mr. Mermelstein, I think the issue of the eventual canonisation of PPXII is of paramount importance as it is connected in subtle ways to other disturbing activities of the current Pope such as his recent re-communication of the Holocaust-denying Bishop of the Society of St Pius X and his attempts to "christianise" the Holocaust.

The article below originally appeared under the title "Extraterrestrials and the Lady of Fatima."

The cause for canonisation of Pope Pius XII has been underway for the last twenty-five years but is now gathering steam as various apologists for this Pope and his role during World War II are popping up all over the place. Make no mistake, just as with the recent re-communication of the holocaust-denying Bishop of the Society of St Pius X, the cause for canonisation of Pope Pius XII is intended to provoke and distress the Jewish people, sanctimonious papal mouthings notwithstanding. [See The Holy Games : Jew-baiting]

There is a pattern to the canonisation effort and any cursory Google search will reveal that most apologists refer to the same set of statements by the same set of persons, including Jews, lauding Pope Pius XII's efforts to save other Jews from the Holocaust.

Two persons make regular appearances on the apologist show:

GARY KRUPP

Gary Krupp is a Jewish-American gentleman from New York who runs the Pave the Way Foundation, an organisation which works to "promote dialogue between religions."

Last September, Mr. Krupp and the Vatican convened a conference in Rome featuring speakers who defended Pope Pius XII's wartime behaviour. According to the Jewish Daily Forward,  the conference was attacked by a variety of Jewish leaders, liberal Catholics and historians for its pro-Pius XII bent.

"This was a one-sided campaign rally rather than a serious intellectual inquiry," said Michael Marrus, a history professor at the University of Toronto who declined to attend.

Mr. Krupp is certainly an interesting personage who, strangely enough, is also a Papal Knight Commander of the Order of St. Gregory the Great, an honour bestowed on him by Pope John Paul II in 2000.

MICHAEL HESEMANN

A much-praised associate of Gary Krupp is a certain Michael Hesemann. Mr. Hesemann has been variously described as an "eminent German historian," a "cultural anthropologist,"  an "advisor of the Pave the Way Foundation," a "relic hunter," a "UFOlogist," a "respected religious scholar," a "Vatican insider," and an "accredited Holy See Press Officer."

According to a Catholic News Agency Report, Mr. Hesemann has been given access to that section of the Vatican Archives dealing with the papacy of Pope Pius XI, the immediate predecessor of Pius XII.

"Each time he [Hesemann] enters the archive," Krupp said, "he comes out with an "astounding" document about Pius XII fighting anti-Semitism or saving Jewish lives."

Mr. Hesemann has certainly written some "astounding" books:

• The Cosmic Connection: Worldwide Crop Formations and ET Contacts
• The Fatima Secret
• UFOs: The Secret History
• Beyond Roswell: The Alien Autopsy Film, Area 51, & the U.S. Government Coverup of UFOs
• The First Pope [a work describing the "astounding" story of the discovery of Peter's tomb under St.Peter's Basilica]
• Titulus Crucis [a work claiming authenticity for the relics of the cross of Christ kept in the Roman Basilica of the Holy Cross of Jerusalem]
• The Pope Who Defied Hitler
• The Truth About Pius XII

Produced some "astounding" films:

• UFOs: the Secret Evidence
• UFOs: Secrets of the Black World
• Ships of Light: the Carlos Diaz UFO Experience

Made some "astounding" claims:

That warnings give to us by such Marian apparitions as the Lady of Fatima are similar to the warnings received from UFO visitors.

Maintains an "astounding" E-Bay site:

Items for sale include reliquaries containing "relics of the True Cross and the Twelve Apostles."

Truth is indeed stranger and more astounding than fiction, isn't it?

We will hear much more from Papal Knight Krupp and will also have the opportunity to study yet more fruits of relic-hunter Hesemann's "astounding" research as he now claims to have discovered the "Holy Grail" in Spain. He also will no doubt continue to favour us with his insights into yet more Christian Relics, the Lady of Fatima, Miracles, Crop Circles, Extraterrestrial Life, UFO's...

PHOTOS:
Top: Papal Knight Krupp receives a birthday kiss from Benedict XVI
Bottom: Michael Hesemann handing Benedict XVI the fruits of his latest research

Mussolini in Training

...continued from A Brief 'Il Duce'

It is an oft-repeated myth about the supposed virtues of Fascism and Fascist Italy in particular -

 "at least Mussolini made the trains run on time."

And what gave rise to Mussolini's obsession with trains and their timetables? Well...

The unsettled conditions of Post World War I Italy had facilitated the rise of paramilitary squads of mainly disgruntled former soldiers, anti-clericalists, nationalists, and conservatives who occupied themselves by attacking trade unionists, socialists, leftists, and others of that ilk. These ready-made agitators known as "Blackshirts" had been co-opted by the former Socialist Mussolini and eventually became the military wing of his Fascist political party.

As Mussolini's power had grown, so too had the power of his "Blackshirts" to threaten, intimidate, and do violence to all his would-be opponents. Mussolini's rhetoric identified the wearing of the "black shirt" with his proclaimed Fascist values of spiritual superiority, struggle and courage.

As we saw in the previous post, Mussolini demanded the formation of a fascist government to restore order [the classic technique of one whose every utterance inspires disorder]. On 29 October 1922, King Victor Emmanuel III bowed to his demands and invited Mussolini to come to Rome to take over the reins of government.

Mussolini then responded to the invitation but he did not arrive at the head of any heroic "March on Rome," as the propaganda myth was later to assert. In reality, this would-be Caesar and his baggaged vainglorious dream of a restoration of the ancient Roman Empire travelled overnight by train from Milan, but legends are not made of such humdrum stuff.

Mussolini formed his Fascist Government on 30 October and "amidst praises for Mussolini from newspapers, politicians, cultural personalities and industrial elites, fascism's reign in Italy began." *

Some 25,000 fascist Blackshirts had been prepared to attempt a violent takeover of Rome but their militaristic dreams of conquest fizzled into a less than glorious finale when they also, in large part, ended up being transported by train to the city where they paraded before the King and Mussolini on 31 October.

It is important to note that, just as Adolf Hitler was later to become the legally appointed Chancellor of Germany, so too was Mussolini the legally appointed Prime Minister [later Dictator] of Italy.

As Falasca-Zamponi so pertinently observes:

"The violent take-over of Rome thus never took place, and the Black Shirts' march-parade ended up being the choreographed appendix to Mussolini's legal appointment as prime minister." [page 1]

* Fascist Spectacle: The Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini's Italy, Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi, University of California Press, 2000, page 1.

No Mercy Sunday

Today is the Feast of Divine Mercy so we must once again interrupt our series on The Vatican and 20th Century European Fascism.

We have already encountered this Feast of Divine Mercy in connection with our post about the world's largest monstrance in a Polish Catholic Church in Chicago. In that post, The King of Jerusalem : Part IV, I quoted from a Catholic Fire webpage which stated that:

"...On February 22, 1931, Jesus first appeared to St. Faustina at the Congregation of Our Lady of Mercy convent in Plock, Poland..."

And that the Feast was:

"...instituted by Pope John Paul II in the year 2000, in response to a direct request by the Lord to a Polish nun, St. Maria Faustina Kowalska, whom Pope John Paul II canonized that year."

After posting that article, I dismissed this new focus on the visions of Sister Faustina as an isolated aberration but as I've just noticed an article in a local newspaper urging the faithful to commemorate The Feast of Divine Mercy, I think we'd better have a second look.

The story goes that Sister Faustina's many visions of Jesus and Mary, and her spiritual journeyings through the 1930's were recorded in notebooks which were later published in 1987 by the Marians of the Immaculate Conception as The Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska: Divine Mercy in My Soul.

One may gauge the fevered state of mind of this poor nun who was soon to die of tuberculosis by a diary entry for February 3, 1938:

"A vision of the Mother of God. In the midst of a great brilliance, I saw the Mother of God clothed in a white gown, girt about with a golden cincture; and there were tiny stars, also of gold, over the whole garment, and chevron-shaped sleeves lined with gold. Her cloak was sky blue, lightly thrown over the shoulders. A transparent veil was delicately drawn over her head, while her flowing hair was set off beautifully by a golden crown which terminated in little crosses. On Her left arm She held the Child Jesus. A Blessed Mother of this type I had not yet seen. Then She looked at me kindly and said: I am the Mother of God of Priests. At that She lowered Jesus from Her arms to the ground, raised Her right hand heavenward and said: O God, bless Poland, bless priests."

Sister Faustina's most important vision, however, had occurred back in 1931 when she saw Jesus with peculiar rays issuing from his breast. She was directed by Jesus to have an image painted of what she saw:

"Paint an image according to the pattern you see with the signature: Jesus, I trust in You ... I promise that the soul that will venerate this image will not perish. I also promise victory over [its] enemies already here on earth, especially at the hour of death. I Myself will defend it as My own glory" (47, 48)

"I am offering people a vessel with which they are to keep coming for graces to the fountain of mercy. That vessel is this image with the signature: 'Jesus, I trust in You' " (327)

"Souls perish in spite of My bitter Passion.  I am giving them the last hope of salvation; that is, the Feast of My Mercy.  If they will not adore My mercy, they will perish for all eternity...tell souls about this great mercy of Mine, because the awful day, the day of My justice, is near.” (965)

The "awful day" was certainly near for millions of his own people. And we certainly know that in Sister Faustina's homeland there was no mercy and much hellfire.

Perhaps all those Jews perished because they did not bow down before this painted image of Jesus' Divine Mercy which must be venerated on pain of hell-fire.

This idea that the Jews were exterminated because they refused to recognise Jesus as the Messiah is an enduring theme which we will explore further in future posts.

It is also interesting to note that Sister Faustina was Polish, the Pope who canonised her was Polish, and the worst excesses against the Jews occurred in Poland. It's just a thought but...perhaps this whole diary thing is a retrospective attempt to justify the Polish Catholic Church heirarchy's absolute silence in the face of all those atrocities being committed against their fellow citizens who happened to be Jewish? The whole thing was divinely ordained after all...so they may say.

You may read the 'diary' of Sister Faustina here.

A Brief 'Il Duce'

continued from Papal Bull...

As in Germany, the rise of Fascism* in Italy stemmed from the post World War I period of civil unrest, political instability and economic inflation. In Milan in 1919, a former newspaper editor and political opportunist, Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini, formed a local political party standing on what has been termed an "ambiguous" Fascist platform - ambiguous in that it sought to embrace all traditional ideological and class groupings.

 

This former Socialist and master of propaganda began toying with and preying upon on the general population's fear of Socialism, Communism, and Anarchism, all of which had briefly flared in the post-war period. Coupled with his strong Nationalist and Law-and-Order policies and his gift for written and spoken rhetoric, it would be only a matter of time before Italy fell into Mussolini's hands.

The measure of his success

In 1921, just two years after inaugurating the Milan Fascist Party, he was able to form the National Fascist Party and gain 35 seats in a Parliament of 355.

The measure of his convictions

With the scent of victory in his nostrils, Mussolini then abandoned his previously held anti-Catholic position.

In November 1919, Mussolini had said...

" there is only one possible revision of the Law of Guarantees and that is its abolition, followed by a firm invitation to his Holiness to quit Rome." ***

But less than a year later, he said...

"I believe that Catholicism can be used as one of the greatest forces for the expansion of Italy in the World."

The measure of his ambition

In 1922, Mussolini seized the day. Amidst a spreading paralysis of government and the threat of civil war, Mussolini demanded the formation of a Fascist Government to restore order.

to be continued..

* The word derives from the fasces, an ancient Roman symbol of collective power and authority consisting of a bundle of rods tied around an axe.

** See The Roman Question : The "Prisoner of the Vatican"

*** The Vatican and Italian Fascism 1929-1932 : A study in conflict, John F. Pollard, Cambridge University Press, 2005, page 22.